


Overjoyed

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Prompt Fics [68]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, M/M, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23968135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Mac finds himself with all the time in the world, and is tired of waiting on the man who has none.
Relationships: Jack Dalton/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Prompt Fics [68]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795
Comments: 13
Kudos: 43





	Overjoyed

**Author's Note:**

> written for an anonymous prompt, "I just needed to hear your voice"

It’s not like he hadn’t had a break before. Like he doesn’t have a life outside of work. Like he isn’t happy to not have guns shoved in his face with every corner he turns, to not have to disarm a bomb, to not have to the weight of the world on his shoulders as he pulls ideas out of his ass to rig up whatever extinguisher he needs to save the entire world, lest he make _one small mistake._

He keeps telling himself happy, more than that, _overjoyed_ at the fact that the Phoenix was shut down.

Temporarily, at least--nothing would ever be able to permanently cease its operations, just...hinder it, a little. Shut down the offices due to something like heavy construction work, or like a pest extermination...

...or like a worldwide quarantine. 

The employees were not entirely let off the hook, encrypted laptops were handed out to complete reports, work on the mundane busy work that was normally done by the “think tank” interns on the secret agency’s front face, but the interns had been let go, and the responsibilities fell on the stir-crazy field agents to keep their minds and hands occupied in lieu of the normal hustle and bustle.

Not as much crime when there’s nobody around to do it, after all.

While Mac didn’t necessarily mind the menial tasks, he did mind that communication was limited with his closest friends, especially when his roommate was mandated to temporarily move to a vacant safehouse to avoid the chance of exposure between _two_ Phoenix operatives. 

Sure, there were Skype calls and text messages, but Mac found that the fireside was colder without the warm bodies of his family surrounding it. 

But he knows that it’s been that way for a while, even before the quarantine, the biggest source of warmth had been gone for a while. A _long_ while, and this situation has done nothing but made him hyper aware of the fact of how much they _haven’t_ talked, since Jack left on his mission for Kovacs. 

It’s not entirely his fault. Jack could pick up the phone, too. Jack’s the one who _should_ pick up the phone, seeing as his free time is on a much tighter leash than Mac’s. _He_ should be the one to delegate the time they set aside for each other. 

Mac has all the time in the world right now, after all. Jack most certainly does not, hell, he’s effectively working on borrowed time, and hunting down one of the most wanted terrorists, Mac has to keep telling himself. 

He also keeps telling himself that _he_ should be with him. Off the bench, on the clock. Not stuck at home rewording old reports from their missions together, erasing Jack’s own exaggerated tale and writing his more technical, truthful, _boring_ one. 

It’s not like either of them _chose_ this. Fate was bigger than them, and was flexing its cruel tendons that had taken Jack away from him, leaving Mac to swirl inside of a bottle of self doubts and... _boredom_ , really.

Life was so _boring_ without Jack, and his mind was unraveled enough to realize that as he sits by the fire, with a phone in his hand.

He also realizes that he’s tired of waiting for Jack to make the first move.

“Hello? Mac? Everything okay?” 

“Jack! Hows’it goin’?” Mac surpresses a burp, suddenly wondering why his bottle was empty.

“You’re slurring your words a bit there, hoss, you at a bar or somethin’?” 

“No, bars are all closed,” Mac scrunches his face, wondering if Jack even knew what was going on, if he was just so deep into his mission that news of the outside world hadn’t reached him. “I’m just having a few beers by the fire.”

“Sounded a bit too quiet for a bar anyway. You with the fam?” 

“Nah. Alone.”

“Drinking alone’s not good, man, you know that.”

“I know. That’s...why I called you, I guess. I just...I just needed to hear your voice. Sorry to bug you.”

“Sorry? What the hell you sorry for?” 

“Just that...you’re so busy, you know, with...the hunt a-and I wasn’t even sure if you’d pick up--”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Mac, it’s...good to hear ya again. Truth be told, I, uh, I’ve been meaning to give you a ring, myself.”

 _A ring? A “ring” ring?_ Mac’s hazy mind dares to imagine. 

“When are you coming back?” Mac blurts out instead. 

“Soon, buddy. Soon. I promise.” 

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Don’t promise me that. That’s what everyone keeps saying and...and there’s no such thing as ‘soon.’ Don’t say that stupid word.“

There’s a beep as the call is interrupted, Mac’s fingers are already primed and ready to reject whoever is on the other end of the line, they can wait as long as he has for this one, singular phone call for all he cares--but he gulps when he sees that it’s Jack, calling for a Facetime session.

“C’mon, man, you wanted to hear my voice, I want to see your pretty face,” Jack goads him.

He tugs at his hair nervously, suddenly feeling conscious of its longer length. He should have improvised a haircut before this impromptu call.

“You gotta promise not to laugh.” 

“Likewise.”

Mac furrows his eyebrows in confusion as he accepts the Facetime, and his face immediately lifts into a gentle laugh as he sees that half of Jack’s eyebrow and beard are missing, and the part of his beard that is still intact is as long and scraggly as the trees in the rain forest.

“Dude, what happened?” Mac coughs as he takes another swig of beer.

“Just a little accident, nothing to worry about, what is going on _there,_ Rapunzel? Miss your date with the hair stylist?”

“Yeah, had to reschedule until the world’s not on lockdown anymore.”

“Lockdown?”

“You really have no idea, do you?” Mac asks incredulously.

“Enlighten me.”

“There’s been a pandemic, everyone’s in quarantine. Even if you’re deemed ‘essential,’ you’re mandated to work at home when you can.”

“Hmm. Might explain a few things.”

“Like what?”

“I heard the knuckleheads that I’m touting around joking about how Kovacs is ‘social distancing’ from us right now.”

Mac has to laugh at that, and barely misses the crinkles on Jack’s face as he cracks a rare smile. 

His heart breaks as he realizes he hasn’t seen Jack smile since the night he left.

“So how come your team knows but you don’t?”

“Ah, they like to keep up the news. I can’t. Feel like I’d hear a headline about how some blond kid went and made a kite to plug up a leaking damn and I’d just get worried that you flew away with it. I’m already worried enough, not being there with y’all.”

“We’re worried about you, too.”

“Well...I’ll be back--”

“Don’t say it--”

“--before you know it. In no time at all. In a time that’s approaching the now--”

“Soon.”

“Hey, man, you said not to say the word, didn’t say I couldn’t give the definition.”

“I wish I could...just touch you right now.”

“I know. But...this is temporary, Mac. This has an end. And when it does, I’m gonna give you the biggest damn bear hug that has ever been given.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“Don’t mention it. And hey, unless y’all are gonna do one of this bippity-boppity zoom parties I keep hearing about, too, _you_ promise me something.”

Mac’s face falls, for some reason, the tone in Jack’s voice seems to be one of a man who’s trying to wind down the call, get off the phone, and Mac’s unsure if he’s ready to say goodbye. Again.

“Okay, what?”

“That you _call me_ the next time you pick up a beer with the intent on not sharing one with yours truly. Don’t give a damn how ‘busy’ I might be. Multitasking’s my middle name.”

“Thought it was ‘careful?’“

“You can have more than one middle name, Mac.” 

“Alright,” Mac chuckles. “Well...I guess I should let you go, then.”

“Go? Why would you let me go? We’re just getting started here, man. Besides...you got nothing but time, right now, don’tcha?” 

“Yeah, but you--”

“Don’t have time for you? Bullshit. For you, Mac, for the man I most certainly love in this most uncertain world we live in? I have all the time in the world.”

“Even more than Die Hard?”

A beat.

“Okay, maybe _slightly_ more than Die Hard.”

“I love you, too, Jack.”


End file.
